Herb Kanner, CPSR Board Secretary, hosted a delegation from Turkmenistan that visited with CPSR in Palo Alto on August 13th as part of a U.S. Department of State International project entitled "Internet Policy."

Publications

Researchers, designers, and other practitioners from diverse design fields such as architecture, urban planning, engineering, interaction design and others (such as the fine arts) focused on understanding collaborative design work. The PDC 2002 Proceedings give a sense of the variety of perspectives and discourse on participation and design, point to creative new directions and innovative approaches, and highlight challenges confronting design practitioners concerned with the art of participatory design in connection to longstanding political concerns with user participation and democracy.

Since 1987, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility has hosted the biannual "Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing"(DIAC) symposium. The theme of the 2002 event, attended by 300 researchers and practitioners in Seattle in May, was "Shaping the Network Society: Patterns for Participation, Action and Change." Over 60 "patterns," based on the original concepts of Christopher Alexander and his colleagues, were presented.

Includes articles by Andy Oram, Karen Coyle, Cory Doctorow, and Wen-Hsin Lin. This issue continues CPSR's interest and and contributions to the issues revolving around intellectual property, particularly since the debate around and passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998. It has always been the case that powerful interests steered the law in this policy arena, but in recent years they have become more brazen. Another recent change of significance is the impact of digital technology on the discourse of ideas and their expression, and the ways that this fact supposedly changes everything and necessitates vastly changed intellectual property rules.

Includes articles by Severo Ornstein, Terry Winograd, Bob Wilcox, Erik Nilsson, Jeff Johnson, Doug Schuler, and Nathaniel Borenstein. The articles all appeared in the CPSR Newsletter, since its beginnings in 1983. The articles focus on answering the questions -- What were the issues that motivated the founding of CPSR? What were some of the questions we faced as Computer Professionals? How can CPSR activists influence policy makers?

Each article contains a retrospective update that focuses what has happened since the article was written. In many cases the issues are just as relevant as they were at the time of the original article.

Looking over these articles it shows the broad range of interests that CPSR activists have participated in. Turning twenty gives us the opportunity to sit back and reflect on how much we've accomplished. From Star Wars to Net Governance -- we've had an impact.

This summer, CPSR was fortunate to have the services of a legal intern, Wen-Hsin Lin, from Cornell University Law School. Hsin contributed two important pieces of work to our developing intellectual property efforts.

Comments & Testimony

Submitted reply comments about Micosoft/DOJ on March 11, and was included as
one of the 47 "major" filings of the 30,000 comments released by the Department of Justice.

Submitted comments to the Senate Judiciary committee, five state sponsors, and Representatives Boucher and Schiff to express our serious misgivings regarding the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA)

Harry Hochheiser testifiedon February 14th about Identity Theft and Social Security Numbers in relation to HB 281, a proposed Maryland bill that would prohibit businesses from refusing to do business with customers who choose to keep their SSNs private.

A letter from Veni Markovski to the Bulgarian National Assembly, concerned with the recent proposed draft of a new Bulgarian Telecommunications Act that would establish a procedure for licensing Internet service providers.

Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space petition written by Bruce K. Gagnon.

CPSR's amicus brief in the matter before the California Supreme Court of DVD-CCA v. Bunner, a case challenging the use of California trade secret law to squelch the reverse- engineering and distribution of DeCSS code.

Robert Guerra, CPSR Board Member and Director of CPSR's project to secure human rights - Privaterra - has conducted workshops in New York.

Robert Guerra, Caryn Mladen, and Katitza Rodriguez represented Privaterra and CPSR during a week-long blitz of the San Francisco Bay Area while they were in the area for the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference (CFP).

They spoke at the Stanford Law School, CPSR's Birds of a Feather session at CFP, and

CPSR Chapter meetings in Palo Alto and Berkeley

Jason Young, one of Privaterra's directors, served a clerkship at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) as part of their Internet Public Interest Opportunities Program during the summer.

In collaboration with the National Communication Associations's Task Force on the Digital Divide, the Project hosted DIAC 2002 - Shaping the Network Society symposium. Like previous DIAC symposia, it again provided a forum for practitioners, researchers, and activists who are building civic and community information systems.

The Pattern Language project of the Public Sphere Project now has a new main page and the listserv is up and running.

2001-2002 Essay Contest

CPSR received almost 70 essays from 22 U.S. states, 3 other countries, high schools, community colleges, state universities, and private colleges. Subject areas included:
Community Networks, CyberRights, Education, Ethics, Intellectual Property, Law, Privacy and Civil Liberties, Reliability and Risk, Working in the Industry, and Workplace issues.
Grand Prize Winner: